Note 264 — Chapter XI
E. J. (Edward James) Chinnock translation
Damascus,—the Hebrew name of which is Dammesek,—a very ancient city in Syria, at the foot of the Antilibanus, at an elevation of 220 feet above the sea, in a spacious and fertile plain about 30 miles in diameter, which is watered by three rivers, two of which are called in the Bible Abana and Pharpar. It has still a population of 150,000. The emperor Julian, in one of his letters, calls it “the Eye of all the East.”